


Diminuendo

by psocoptera



Category: Popslash
Genre: Early Work, M/M, Shrinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2003-05-19
Updated: 2003-05-19
Packaged: 2018-02-10 10:45:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2022180
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psocoptera/pseuds/psocoptera
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Chris, his shoes, and a leaf.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Diminuendo

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Allecto](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Allecto/gifts).



> Allecto is one of the three people who got me into NSYNC fandom; when I started writing popslash, I dedicated a story to each of them. Thanks again for the sparkles!
> 
> This is my only early story that anyone might possibly remember and be looking for, so, hi, if that's what brings you here! Chris/Lance is still the NSYNC ship of my heart. ::grin::

Chris first noticed something was wrong when his pants didn't fit quite right. He assumed something was wrong with the pants: they were a little loose, a little long. 

Weird thing was, they were *all*like that, all his favorite pants. Someone screwing up his laundry, maybe. He finally found a pair he hadn't worn in a while that fit okay. It occurred to him that maybe he had lost weight; he didn't actually own a scale and resolved to drop by Justin's or Lance's some time to check. 

When the okay pants were loose the next morning, he decided to bump the scale thing to the top of the priority list. 

Chris got in his car and adjusted the seat and mirrors, a little confused over who and when he had let someone borrow it. 

When Justin opened his door, Chris brushed in past him - had Justin always loomed that much? - calling "john" back over his shoulder. Justin watched in bemusement as his friend apparently considered and rejected every bathroom on the ground floor, finally disappearing up the stairs with a look of increasing urgency. Justin decided he probably *didn't* want to know... until almost ten minutes had passed. 

He found Chris curled up on the floor of Justin's own personal bathroom, staring glumly at the scale. 

Chris looked up at him. "I think I'm, like, sick or something..." he said in a shaky voice. 

"Ok," Justin said, trying to sound reassuring and wishing Joey or Lance or JC or maybe his mom was there. "Um..." 

"I lost weight," Chris said. "Like, not on purpose, and a lot." 

"Ok," Justin said again. He immediately thought of tapeworms and stomach cancer and AIDS. No, he thought. Think about Chris. He thought of Chris thinking about tapeworms and stomach cancer, and tried not to think at all. He stuck out a hand to Chris and pulled him to his feet. 

"Dude," Justin said in shock, "You didn't lose weight." Chris, never tall, barely reached his chin. "You lost height." 

Chris failed to look reassured. 

*** 

"That's impossible," Joey said. 

"Just look at him!" Justin retorted. Chris stood in the middle of Justin's living room, arms crossed, staring resolutely at the rug. Every time he tried to sit down someone made him stand up again, and he had given up. 

"I agree, he's short," Joey said reasonably. "But he's always been short." 

"Not *that* short," said Justin. 

"Well, maybe he's always been this short and we just didn't realize it!" Joey said. 

"Oh, right, Joe, because it's not like we've been *dancing* with him for six years or anything, of course we could have just missed that." 

"He's been wearing those shoes," Joey said stubbornly. 

"What about osteoporosis?" JC put in. He looked at Chris wide-eyed. "Have you been getting enough calcium?" 

"Argh, C, that's like, little old ladies!" Justin said. 

Lance put his hand on JC's arm. "I don't think that could be it," he said, "We just had dinner on Thursday and I didn't notice anything different." 

"Because nothing *is* different," Joey insisted. 

Lance put his hands up in a "hold" gesture. He pulled out his Palm and scrolled through quickly, then held the Palm out to Chris along with his cellphone. "I think you need to call your primary-care physician," he said. 

"You have my doctor in that thing?" Chris said. 

"I could call your mom instead," Lance said. Chris wasn't sure if it was a threat or an offer. But whatever this was, he didn't want to burden his mom with it until he knew more about what was going on. 

Chris's doctor was persuaded to make a house call and given directions to Justin's. When he got there he vanished with Chris into one of the guest bedrooms. When they came out Chris nodded at him and he smiled reassuringly at four pairs of anxious eyes. "Mr. Kirkpatrick is in excellent health," he announced, and they all heard the "but" before he said it. "He does seem to be... according to his medical record... his height was previously sixty-six inches but is now measuring closer to sixty-three." 

"So what is it?" Justin asked, not even throwing an I-told-you-so glance at Joey because this was Chris and it was more important. 

"Well..." said the doctor. "I'm not actually familiar with any condition that might have such an effect without presenting other symptoms in the curvature of the spine or overall muscle tone," he said apologetically. "We could do tests, but..." 

"No tests," Chris said tightly. "Not if you don't have any idea what you're testing for." 

Lance pulled out his Palm again. "Perhaps you could refer a specialist." 

"Um," said Chris's doctor. He faltered under the green stare. "I could try to look someone up?" 

He hurried away, and by some tacit vote they decided everyone was staying at Justin's that night, including Chris. 

He had lost another four inches by the morning. 

*** 

"All that mass has to be going somewhere." 

Chris picked at the arm of Justin's couch. They had all glared at him when he went for the Playstation. 

"Maybe, like, all his atoms are just getting closer together." 

"Hey, Chris, stand up for a sec." 

He tried to ignore them. JC scooped him off the couch and held him up for a flailing instant before dumping him back. 

"No, he's definitely lighter." 

"Look, forget about how, what about why?" 

"Go ask Alice," Chris muttered, and immediately regretted it when they all stopped and looked at him. 

"Chris," Joey said slowly, "Did you eat or drink something?" 

"Yeah," Chris said, and they all sucked in a breath, "Like breakfast and dinner and lunch and breakfast before that and..." 

"Something unusual?" Joey said. "Something that you didn't know what it was, that said "eat me" maybe?" 

"Joey," Chris said, "Do you eat everything that says... well, actually, you probably -" Joey was glaring at him. "*No*," he said, "I did not eat or drink anything I haven't had a zillion times before. If this was some allergic reaction I would have noticed it years ago." 

"When he used to be 6' 1"," Lance added quietly. Nobody but Chris smiled. 

"Did you make any wishes?" JC asked suddenly. 

"No," Chris said, "And if it was a wish, don't you think I'd be getting *taller*?" 

"It could be like a monkey's-paw thing," JC said. "Like all twisted and gone wrong." 

"Nope," Chris said, "No monkey's paws. No birthday candles, stars, wishbones, or fortune cookies, okay?" 

"Maybe the shoes?" Joey said. "That's sort of like, a wish to be taller." 

Chris wiggled his bare feet. 

"Could you have pissed off any little old ladies?" Joey asked. 

"Don't *tell* me you believe in strega," Chris said. 

"Look," Joey said, "I'm just trying to think of something, okay? Maybe there's no such thing as a curse. Do you have a better idea?" Chris was silent. "You think I should just leave you alone?," Joey continued. "I don't think so." 

Chris sighed. "I am pretty sure I have not pissed off anyone, little old lady or otherwise, except for possibly you in the past five minutes." 

"Maybe it is some kind of karma thing," JC said. "Um, for, um, well," 

"Claiming to be 5' 10"," Justin finished, when it didn't seem like JC was going to get to the point. 

"Being punished for my vanity, huh?" Chris said. "Okay," he told the ceiling, "I repent!" 

"I think you probably have to prove it," Joey said. 

*** 

They all drove over to Chris's house and stood staring into his closet. 

"*All* of them?" Chris asked, and the rest of them nodded solemnly. 

He started tossing shoes out of his closet. Lance had somehow produced a box and they began filling it up ("wait," said Chris at a few points, "that pair doesn't have lifts"). 

When they were done the boxes didn't quite fill his trunk. 

"Dude," Chris said, "Do I really own that many shoes?" 

JC and Justin snickered. 

"I hate to break it to you," Joey said sadly, "But we all do." 

"At *least*," said JC. 

"Cheer up," Lance said, "You're about not to." 

They dropped the shoes off at Goodwill ("doh," Justin said later, "that could have been one heck of a charity auction"). Chris didn't feel any taller. 

They ordered a couple of pizzas, and Justin and Joey went out to rent a movie and came back with "Big" and "Honey I Shrunk the Kids", "for research purposes", Justin explained. 

"Hey," Justin nudged him during the latter, "Did you get, like, zapped with anything," and Chris blew up and yelled "I think I would fucking remember that" and they had to put the movie on pause while Justin convinced him to come back. 

*** 

"Okay," Chris said the next morning, "I'm another three inches shorter and I'm out some really nice shoes. Anyone else have any brilliant ideas?" 

"Maybe you need to do something more public," JC said, so they called Johnny and explained the situation. Johnny was needless to say concerned and made some calls and Chris ended up recording a short radio spot in which he acknowledged that anybody could feel pressure about their body image, confessed to the 5'10" inflation, and encouraged people to be proud of who they were, ending with a short plea for people "who felt that pressure might be driving them to do something unhealthy" to talk to someone. It was a little embarrassing, but someone had warned the recording techs not to react to his diminished condition, and it was for a good cause, right? But he was down another inch by dinner. 

"Maybe we're on the wrong track completely," Joey said, and pulled Justin off for a conference. JC insisted on cooking Chris an organic meal "just in case it was pesticides or something" and Lance tapped at his laptop furiously searching for information that might help. 

The next day Joey and Justin pulled a Miracle on 34th street and dumped bags of Chris's fan mail over his head at lunch. He got hit on the head by a videotape someone had left at one of the concerts and sat rubbing it in a pile of tearstained letters, posters, and FKA t-shirts. He shrank another two inches while they watched. 

"Damn," said Justin, "I thought maybe you were starving for fan attention or something." 

"Maybe *you* would shrivel up on that account," Chris snapped. "Maybe we can test that someday. But you don't see Joey dwindling to reflect his popularity, do you?" 

"I was in Greek Wedding," he mumbled sheepishly. 

Chris sighed. "Look, guys," he said. "Do you really think I have some kind of self-esteem issue? Me?" 

Nobody answered him. 

"Really?" 

"Well, something's going on," muttered Justin. 

"Maybe it's the opposite," JC said. "Like your image as a pop star is taking over who you really are." 

"Argh," Chris said. "I've passed Danny Devito and I'm closing on Warwick Davis and the best we can come up with is that it's some kind of metaphor?" 

"Nope," Lance said, looking up from his email, "The best we can come up with is Dr. Carolyn Bernard, a growth specialist in Tampa. She can see you tomorrow at two." 

"Um," Chris said. He looked down at his hands. 

Lance looked back down at his email. "I'm sorry," he said. "If you think I've overstepped myself..." 

Chris looked back up. "No!" he said. "No. Um..." 

"Of course we'll come," Lance said. 

*** 

Chris had been scared. 

He lay awake thinking about it. At the thought of going off to Tampa by himself, he had been genuinely afraid. He was not in the habit of being scared of inter- no, the other one - in-state travel. He hadn't even had to fly. 

Possibly - ever so maybe - it was being, like, four feet tall? Which he hadn't been in years, so it totally made sense that he was a little out of practice. And really, why would he have stayed *in* practice at being, like, too little to take care of himself. Not that, like, he had expected this doctor to try beating on him, and there were the bodyguards, anyways, but, yeesh. It was like being twelve again, or eight or something, he wasn't even sure. 

He nervously felt at his balls. Still there, still hairy, okay, he wasn't actually eight. Just, eight-sized, or twelve or whatever, so really it made sense that it was maybe starting to get to him a little, in an acting like a scared little kid way, which explained why he had felt so much safer in the car when Lance had put his arm around him. 

Stupid shrinking. 

And of course it had been a completely wasted trip anyways. 

*** 

"If you'd just give it a try, Chris." 

Silence. 

"Chris" - this was JC - "Chris, we're worried about you." 

Silence. 

"Chris, you have to get some help here!" 

Joey winced. "Em," he said, watching Chris start to twitch, "Jup, let's not..." 

Chris was slowly turning maroon. 

"How is this." he said quietly, coming up in Justin's face, or as close as he could get, which was actually more like Justin's rib cage, "How is this MY FAULT?!!" 

"Whoa, whoa," Justin said, looking down at him and making little soothing motions that were unfortunately close to head-patting. "I'm not saying it's your fault. But, Chris, it's been over a week," 

"And over a foot," JC added, 

"And you're - we're just not getting anywhere." 

"Look," Chris said, calming down, because, okay, they really were trying to help, "I went to that doctor Lance found, okay? She'll get my full endocrine workup in a couple days and we'll go from there." 

"Chris," Lance said calmly, "She also didn't think she'd find anything." 

"Which is *why*," Justin and JC said together, "She gave you these referrals!" 

"But it doesn't make sense," Chris said. "She doesn't know what's wrong, so it must be all in my head? Look, I *know* psychology, there is nothing *in* psychology about psychosomatic size reduction, honestly *I* would think I was delusional if it wasn't happening to me, and I am not going to a shrink because I'm shrinking! No!" 

"Please?" Lance asked. 

*** 

"Apparently," Chris spat out, tight-lipped, "I'm sublimating my repressed trauma over the absence of my father onto my physical stature as a way of acting out my lost childhood." 

He sat cross-armed and just plain cross in the back of Joey's car on the way back from the therapist's office. 

"Really?" JC asked curiously, hopeful. "That's it?" 

"No, you idiot, he has no idea, he just has to say something, right? Standard shrink bullshit. I'm surprised he didn't go with "cry for attention", that's always a good one." 

"Oh," JC said, deflated. 

"And," Chris said, "He'd never even heard of Warwick Davis. Who I am now shorter than, I might point out." 

"He was 2' 11" when he did Return of the Jedi," JC said. 

"Curses," Chris said, "Thwarted. Tomorrow, tomorrow I will pass you, Wicket, and steal your lead role in Willow 2! Muahaha!" 

He caught the grin Joey exchanged with JC in the rearview mirror. Note to self, Chris thought, keep spirits up. Yes. Up. 

*** 

"Aaaaaaaaaugh, noooooo..." Chris howled. "*Eight inches*? That's, like, speeding up, no, you must have measured wrong, do it again." 

He grabbed the tape measure and looked at the latest mark on the wall where they'd been keeping track of his height. "Lance, you do it," he said, "Joey stuck the pencil way down behind my head, he didn't do it right." 

"Okay," Lance said, pressing Chris's head back against the wall with one careful hand, laying the ruler on the crown of his head and marking on the wall, "Look, Chris, I think Joey's measurement was accurate." 

"You're saying I'm two foot seven," Chris said, looking up at where Lance still leaned over him. "As in, two foot seven inches. 

"Yes." 

"One inch shorter than Verne Troyer." 

"Um..." 

"You're saying I'm shorter than Mini-Me!" Chris yelled. It was, unfortunately, more of a screech. "Jesus fucking Christ, I am a Mini-Me! I am mini me! Aaaaaaaaagh!" He ran out the door. Lance could hear him thumping down the stairs, yelling the whole way. 

"I think he's handling this well," Joey said. Lance calmly noted the new height in his Palm. 

*** 

Joey found him up a girl who could be counted on to be discreet. "I don't know if it'll, uh, do anything," he said, blushing a little, "But just 'cause you're a little shorter shouldn't mean you have to go without, right?" 

"God, Joe," Chris said afterwards. "She gave really good head, and, all I could think about, I was just laying there thinking, is this so good because my fucking dick is the size of a fucking chapstick, huh? Easy to deepthroat when you're not gonna get anywhere near the throat, right?" 

"Maybe you need to learn it's not the size that counts," Joey said. "Or, um, if you'd rather, um," 

"I could pick you up a guy," Lance said. They were sitting on the living room floor playing backgammon, keeping a careful eye on Chris, who was sulking on the couch with his third beer despite having *no* tolerance any more. 

Chris stared at both of them. "Gosh," he finally said. "That's really sweet of you, Lance. And, Joey, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING? Of *course* size counts, I have." He took a breath. "I have Tiny. Little. Hands. What's that got to be like for somebody, it's *freaky*, it's like being grabbed by a lemur or something." 

"I don't think you're quite at the lemur stage yet," Lance said evenly. "Gibbon, maybe." 

Chris looked at him for a minute. Lance looked back, straight-faced. Then Chris broke up into hysterical laughter. "Gibbon," he hooted. "Gibbon gibbon gibbon!" Lance laughed and Joey grinned at both of them. "Lance," Chris said, "Where would I be without you?" 

"I believe gibbons are native to south Asia," Lance said mock-seriously, making Chris crack up again. Joey just rolled his eyes. 

*** 

Justin made him go to prayer meeting. 

"I haven't been to church in years," Chris said. 

"Exactly," Justin said. 

*** 

"I read this book when I was a kid," JC said over dinner. Chris was still sulking from having been mistaken for Justin's son at the prayer meeting. Justin was still sulking from Chris having told off the pastor's wife at the prayer meeting, although he had to admit, Chris did have the beard and all, it had been a little... tactless. 

"A book about a *dragon*," JC said more loudly. 

"Um," Joey said, "We're listening, right? A dragon?" 

"The dad said there was no such thing," JC said, "But he wanted to get noticed, so he started getting bigger, until he was as big as the house." 

"JC," Chris said, "I assure you, I am honestly, fervently appreciative of my normal size, and am not trying to -" 

"No," JC said, frustrated, "Maybe it's, like, one of us." 

"We're honestly, what'd he say, appreciative of his normal size," Joey, Lance, and Justin chorused on cue. 

"No," JC said, "But what if, that's maybe, not enough. Maybe, there's like, something that someone hasn't *said*, or, like, it's just *words*, so..." 

"Oh no," Chris said, "Tell me no." 

"So," JC said, "We're all going to take turns sitting down with Chris alone, and if there's anything you haven't told him, or, Chris, that you haven't said, then, say it, and then -" 

"No, no, no," Chris pleaded. 

"- I think we should all kiss him. Because," he said, over the whats and excuse mes, "If it is, like, a thing, then you know in stories how, well, wouldn't it be worth it? If it could fix him?" 

"I'm not gonna," Chris said. 

"Maybe with everybody watching to make sure you really do it," JC said thoughtfully. 

"Woo-hoo!" Justin said. "Thirty seconds in the closet with Chris. Let's go." 

He grabbed Chris's hand and dragged him into the laundry room nearby. Chris was very easy to drag now. 

"Um," Chris said, when Justin had shut the door, "Um, Justin, whoa, you're not, like, whoa, or nothing, Justin?" 

"Dude," Justin said, "I just didn't want, I mean, JC can be a little, um, the whole thing is embarrasing but maybe he has a point, but why make it worse?" 

"Justin," Chris said gently, trying to sound older and wiser while staring at Justin's belt buckle, "Is there something you haven't told me?" 

Justin was quiet for a moment. "You're my best friend," he said, "And more than that, you're like, I trust you, man. I need you there for me." 

"I think we're having a moment!" Chris said in a choked-up voice. "I love you, man! Buy me a beer!" 

Justin swatted him. "You think I really got to kiss you?" 

"Justin," Chris said, "I'm gonna be there for you. If JC thinks, I dunno, I mean, I don't think of you that way, and I'm maybe gonna have to wash my mouth out with some of this bleach, but..." 

Justin picked him up, set him down on the washing machine, and smacked him on the lips. They waited expectantly for a moment. "Guess not," Justin said, "Now I got Chris cooties for nothing, and by the way that was fabric softener you were pointing at, dude, get a laundry clue." 

"Next!" Chris yelled. "Send me JC, it was his idea!" 

*** 

"And I ate the last grape popsicle," JC said, "And scratched your Warren Zevon CD, and..." 

"No shit," Chris said, "That was you? I gotta shrink more often, all sorts of dark stuff comes to light. Seeecrets reveeealed." 

"Well," JC said, blushing, "I just don't want to leave anything out, you know? Like in case?" 

"Jayce," Chris said, "I sort of thought maybe you had something to tell me, since, like, you came up with it and all." 

"Not really," JC said, "It just seemed like a good theory, because, maybe. But, um, you're not really, um, I mean, if *you've* been, then, I guess, but, for me, I don't," 

"JC," Chris said firmly. "You're a good friend and I'm glad I have you around to take care of me. Now smooch me and let's get this over with, okay?" 

JC kissed him lightly, giggling. Chris was still sitting on the washing machine; he leaned back and pretended to swoon. "Maybe Joey?" Chris said, fluttering his eyelashes tragically. "Oh, for that kiss of true love for which I languish for, dwindling away without its fiery, um, love, to, um..." 

"I thought, maybe, um," JC said in a rush. "But I'll send Joey in." 

*** 

Joey brought him a beer. 

"Oh, I do love you, man" Chris said. "C'mere and kiss me, Joe!" 

Joey kissed him casually. "Didn't we get over this *years* ago?" he said. "Really, I got nothing to tell you except my secret hope that you'll stay that way and make a perfect playmate for Bri." 

"God," Chris said, "Don't even joke about that, and yeah, I'm not, like, carrying a torch or anything. Sorry, man." 

"No, I'm sorry," Joey said. "I wish it was me. I wish I could just, like, admit my secret love and fix it for you. Like, if that was all? I'd be with you tonight, man, maybe we could, like, work out something poly for the long term, but, you know I'd - " 

"I know," Chris said. "Love conquers all, right? Poof, and I'm back. But I don't think it works like that." 

Joey shook his head. "I'll, um, I'll send in Lance," Joey offered, "There's still a chance, right?" 

*** 

Lance paced back and forth in the small laundry room. He had stepped in and Chris had hopped down from the washing machine and excused himself. "Small bladder," he had joked, "One sec, 'kay?" 

It had been more than one sec. Did Chris not want to talk to him? Lance paced. When he thought about it later, Lance thought, he would think about it as the time Chris shrank. Not when Chris - no. But what if they couldn't fix it? What if his last memories of Chris were of this... toy version? What if he never got to.. 

"Back!" Chris announced. 

Lance's eyes met Chris's evenly. "I love you," he said. 

"What?" 

"Look, maybe JC is right," Lance said quickly. "I love you." 

"Lansten," Chris rolled his eyes, "You can't just - " 

"No, really, Chris!" He dropped to his knees and kissed Chris hard on the mouth. "I. You. Love. Did your brain get smaller too?" 

"Lance," Chris said, big-eyed, except that his eyes had gotten smaller which was really weird since usually little people like babies had those huge normal-sized eyes, eye-sized, and Chris's weren't, and "Lance," Chris said, trying to focus, "You, um, I." 

He looked down at himself. "I'm sorry," he said, "I don't think it's working." 

"But," Lance said. 

Chris shook his head slowly. "I'm sorry, man, but I don't think that's it." 

"Oh," Lance said. He suddenly felt like a huge idiot. And not just because he towered over Chris. 

*** 

They had all moved in to Justin's house by then. Joey started cooking giant Italian dinners, giving Chris heaping servings. "You may be wasting away, but you don't have to starve to death," he'd say, when Chris asked how he was expected to eat all that. For a few days they just hung out watching movies and playing Playstation, although the controllers were getting to be much too big for Chris's hands. JC ordered a book called "Little, Big" off Amazon that turned out to be some kind of family drama novel, hundreds of pages long, which Chris ended up stacking with the phone book, dictionary, and all of Justin's yearbooks to sit on until he gave up and started sitting crosslegged on the table. Lance plotted his height in Excel and spent most of a day trying to figure out if there was a pattern, if it was true sinusoidal or exponential or if the rate was still in log phase or maybe linearizing until Chris slipped up behind him, reached up, and tried to remove his glasses and rub his temples. 

"Or that's what I'm trying to do," Chris announced, "If I could reach. Come on, man, JC wants to watch Star Wars, we need you to do Vader." 

"Your lack of faith disturbs me," Lance said in the appropriate voice, and picked up Chris and carried him back downstairs by the ankles. 

*** 

"I cannot *believe* this," Lance said. "I go to run *one errand* and I come back and you've gotten him *stoned*??" 

Chris was running around manically at the height of everyone else's knees, singing "Ding, dong the witch is dead" at the top of his lungs in an incredibly shrill voice. 

"Well, you know, like JC said," Joey said, 

"No, it was Justin," JC said, 

"It was Chris first," Justin said, "Mushrooms, right? Caterpillars, go ask Alice?" 

"You've *got* to be kidding," Lance said. Chris had now moved on to "We represent the lullabye league" and was attempting to pirouette. 

"Come on," Joey said, "He's happy, you have to give him that." 

"Oh Lance," Chris squealed, "You're so *big*!" He threw his arms around Lance's left knee. 

Lance held him very carefully on his lap, smoothing his hair, while he watched JC's copy of the Wizard of Oz. Twice. 

*** 

It had just been two weeks. Chris sat on the counter, trying to wrap his mind around it. Two weeks, and he was less than a fifth of his original size. Two weeks, for his entire life to just... shrink down. He hadn't left the house in days, and, the way things were going, he wasn't sure he'd ever be leaving it again. They'd finally given up on adjusting toddler clothes - there was only so far you could belt in a pair of pants - and he was currently dressed in one of Ken's finest tuxedo ensembles. The seams were huge and were chafing him horribly - he was definitely sending someone out tomorrow for some high-quality doll clothes. Didn't Oscar de la Renta design for Barbie? Did he do a men's, er, Ken's line? Barring that, it was going to be silk handkerchief poncho time. 

"Okay, Chris, just try saying something into here." 

"Just normal speaking volume, it should pick it up okay." 

His voice, JC had explained, was getting hard to understand. It was, apparently, squeaky. 

In some ways that hurt just as much as his microdick. More, maybe. His *voice*. 

Lance and JC had put their heads together and hooked up a bunch of JC's sound equipment to process his voice down a couple octaves. At first it had all been hisses and pops as the mic picked up the noise of people moving around, but they had tinkered with it until what came out sounded, they told him, more or less like his normal voice. 

He had to take their word for it - it sounded huge to him, giant, deep, booming, but then they all did. They tried to whisper, to speak in higher voices, although Joey had confessed that he felt like he was talking to Briahna. 

Lance had gone out and come back with a tank of helium and spent a pleasant hour arguing with Chris about playoff rankings, taking occasional hits of the helium when he saw Chris wincing at his voice. Joey and Justin had about fallen off their chairs laughing - Chris mostly laughed at the funny faces Lance made talking in his chipmunk voice. 

*** 

"Oh, you're kidding." 

Standing on the counter was the rest of Nsync - in doll form. 

"Justin thought you might like some company," Joey said, "Now everybody, smile for the picture!" 

*** 

In a way, Chris thought, it had been sort of sweet. In a way, it was immensely creepy, sitting here along the edge of the dictionary with these mannequins of his friends. He missed, he missed so much, being able to tackle Justin or have JC sprawl in his lap - sure, he still touched them all the time, but now it was sitting in palms while he was carefully carried from room to room, or tugging on earlobes when whosever shoulder he was sitting on wasn't changing the channel fast enough. Well, poking earlobes, he could hardly get up a good tug anymore, even with an earring to grab. 

He briefly considered, and immediately discarded, the idea of hauling the Lance doll back to his little Barbie bed. It really would be like sleeping with a mannequin. And no one was very good about knocking anymore, and he really didn't need Joey snapping pictures of that. 

*** 

"How 'bout the Littles?" 

"Ew, what, Dinky? No way." 

"Ok, the, uh, the Borrowers? Is there a good Borrower?" 

"Man, I don't know, I never read the Borrowers. How 'bout, um..." 

"Jeannie. Oh, man, when she's lamp-sized?" 

Chris came back from the bathroom, where, as everywhere else, Arrangements Had Been Made. He climbed back onto his pillow where the mic was resting. "What are you freaks talking about now?" 

"Who we'd do if we were Chris-sized," Justin said. "What do you think, Barbie, or I Dream of Jeannie?" 

"Barbie's hard plastic," Chris said. "And, uh, I think I'm closer to GI Joe at this point." 

"Woo!" Joey said. "Men in uniform! That's your pick, Chris?" 

"Well," Chris said, thinking about it. "If I was really going to... just paint me blue and call me Papa Smurf, boys." 

"Wow," Lance said thoughtfully, "That whole village... Handy... Hefty... Vanity... Brainy... " 

"Brainy?" Joey said. "But he's so..." 

"Smurfette, guys, hello?" Justin interrupted. 

With the whole mic set-up, Chris couldn't say anything softly, and he couldn't say anything just to one person. But as Justin and JC started debating the merits of having an entire town date one woman, Chris caught Lance's eye and held thumb-and-forefinger circles up to his eyes, then crossed his arms and nodded knowingly. Lance shook his head slightly. Chris spread out his hands, asking... Lance just pointed at him, and Chris wondered if his face was small enough to be unreadable. 

*** 

"Oh my god!" 

JC came downstairs to find Lance on the floor, laughing, sending a remote-controlled car speeding around the furniture. 

"Lance," JC said weakly, "Tell me that's not... *please* tell me you don't have Chris in there." 

Lance brought the car to a gentle stop by JC's foot. "See for yourself," he said. JC picked up the car and saw Chris in the front seat, clinging to a piece of string tied around the body of the car and laughing his head off. JC set the car down on the counter, blocking it carefully between fruit bowls, and brought over the mic. 

"What the hell did you stop us for?" Chris said as soon as he set down the mic. "It was great! Oh, man, you have to try this, it's totally crazy, it's like being in an offroad race or something..." 

"Chris, it *is* crazy!" JC said. "You could get hurt! What if you ran into something, you could fly out, you could get, Chris, you could, you don't even have a seatbelt! Do you even have suspension in there? Lance, how could you... how could you..." 

"He was fine," Lance said tightly. 

"Hey, it was my idea," Chris said. "Lance here is a great driver, all those rocketship reflexes or something, I dunno, he's an ace, man! High five!" 

He stuck his arm out the side of the car. Lance held out his index finger and Chris slapped it. 

"Chris," JC said, "Chris, *think* for a minute! How could we set your bones if you broke something, huh? You're like four inches tall, what if you get whiplash? They don't make cervical collars that size!" 

He looked into the car and saw Chris rubbing his forehead. 

There was a long moment. 

"Look, JC," Chris said, and even through all the processing JC could tell he sounded tired. "You've seen Lance's plots, and, hey, don't you dare be sorry, Lance, it's better to know. Do you really think I'm going to live out the month? Hell, at the rate I'm going, I could be gone by the end of the week. I'm just... I'm not gonna worry about stuff too much, okay? Let's just... let's just try to have fun. Barbecue for lunch in the backyard if the weather's nice, yeah?" 

"The backyard? Chris, no way, there could be, like in Gulliver's Travels, with the giant island, there's *birds*, and *giant wasps*, and..." 

"JC," Chris said, "Did you ever even *read* Gulliver's Travels?" 

"We had a comic version," he said, feeling like he was losing ground. 

"Barbecue," Chris said. 

*** 

Amazingly, it was almost like old times. Chris sat on a tiny dollhouse chair ripping hunks of juicy burger meat off of his very own personal burger, which he had insisted on after Joey had started to cut him off a piece of his. He swigged beer out of an incredibly delicate doll house wine glass that Lance had brought home and carefully unwrapped from layer after layer of tissue paper. 

"There's a whole miniatures industry," Lance had said. He had brought wine, too, to test it out, and had filled Chris's glass with an eyedropper before pouring everyone else's. Chris had walked along the row of glasses carefully knocking his tiny one against each. "A toast," he had said. "To, uh." 

"Luck," Joey had said. "Wishes," added JC. "Friends?" put in Justin. 

"The biggest smallest man I know," Lance finished, and they drank. 

That had been three days ago, and the glass was now a giant goblet for him, almost more of an urn, and he could really only manage it two-handed. But the barbecue! the barbecue was perfect. Blue sky, red meat, a giant yellow smear of mustard on his plate where Justin had meant to "just squeeze him out a little" that he kept walking in and smearing around, trying to spell out rude words. 

"Three inches," Chris said reflectively, "Three inches is not so bad." He waited expectantly. 

"Yeah?" Joey said, playing along. "Not so bad, huh?" 

"Well," Chris said, "I have a place in the world. A certain standing, as it were." 

"Oh yeah?" Lance said, grinning already. 

"Well," Chris said philosophically, "At least I'm still bigger than Justin's dick." 

"You... *hey*!" Justin said. "Ooh, I'll..." he dipped his finger in the cooler and flicked it at Chris, who took a drop full in the face and just laughed. 

*** 

"No," Justin said, "No *way*, Chris, you said. You *said*, you can't just, *no*, you can't just *go away*." 

"Jup," Chris said. "Oh, god, Juppy, I don't want to vanish, but, baby, I can almost see it now, stuff getting bigger, I'm just... I think tonight might be it." 

JC had his arms around Justin's waist. Justin turned and buried his face in his shoulder. 

"Look," Chris said. "I love you guys, I'm, I've been, I'm so glad you've been here with me. Three weeks, guys. I made it to three weeks, hell, I wouldn't have made it to three days without you, I would have thrown myself under a Tonka truck or something. But, I don't want you to see this. I don't want you to watch me go. What are you going to do, have me standing on a microscope slide, and keep squinting at me like I'm some paramecium or something? I just... look, I'm gonna get to see things that nobody ever saw with their eyes before, maybe I'll see, DNA, and, and, molecules and shit, before I... well, wherever I'm going." 

"Like that ride at Disneyland," JC said. "Only for real." 

"Yeah," Chris said, "Only for real. But, I just, I want to say goodbye while you can still hear me with that rig-up of yours, okay? And then just, I think I want to be outside, if you could, um, put me on a leaf on the deck rail or something, 'cause if I'm in here on the counter Justin's never going to want to set a pan down again in case I'm still here and he squashes me or something." 

Justin laughed, a little. 

"I can't just set you down and leave you," Joey said. "I can't do it, man." 

"I'll take you," Lance said. 

*** 

So then it was just him and Lance, and the noise of a million elephantine crickets in the summer night. Lance cupped his palm and carried Chris around Justin's backyard, picking a perfect cottonwood leaf and carefully washing it at the spigot then blotting it dry on his shirt. He set the leaf down on the boards of the deck and laid his hand flat for Chris to slide down from his palm. 

Chris walked over to stand on his leaf. It was sort of spongy. 

He looked up at Lance. He waved. Lance waved back, and smiled at him tentatively, and made no move to get up. 

Chris mimed an exasperated shrug and made a patting motion with his hand. 

Lance laid down on the deck, on his side, his eyes even with Chris's leaf. 

Chris wanted to walk over and beep his nose, but he was much, much too short to reach that high now. He figured he could barely, standing on Lance's lower eyelid, reach up and grab his eyelashes. 

Lance just lay there, staring at him. Lance's eye was huge, and so green... Chris didn't think he had ever realized how green. Maybe it was reflecting the leaf; he could see himself in it, striped by the streaks of muscle, a giant, convex mirror. 

As he watched, Lance's eye began to fill with tears. 

"Oh, sweetheart," Chris said, but of course Lance couldn't hear him, "Oh, no, don't cry, Lance love, just, go back inside..." he tried to motion to Lance that he should get up and go, which somehow turned into a galloping little dance as he kept gesturing. Lance smiled a little. 

Chris stopped, rolled his eyes, then tried pointing at Lance and shaking his head. 

"Yup," Lance said, "I probably am," and his breath was like a warm wind. 

Chris put his hand over his heart. 

He saw Lance's eye widen, the pupil grow in the ring of green. 

Chris pressed his hands to his heart. Looked up into Lance's enormous eye, walked up to his face until Lance went cross-eyed, until he was hidden behind the promontory of Lance's nose. 

Lance held his breath, fighting the instinct to move back, get Chris back in sight. He didn't dare to move at all, with Chris so close. 

Chris stood on tiptoe and pressed a gentle kiss into the corner of Lance's lips. 

Then, thinking about it, he smashed his face into Lance's lip as hard as he could. 

The lip trembled and shifted and he darted back, running back far enough to see that Lance was smiling. 

Chris sat down on his leaf cross-legged and pointed at Lance, then made "stay" motions. Lance made a small nod, which Chris could feel creaking his plank of the deck. 

He laid back, parallel to Lance's face, and looked up. The stars looked just the same as they always had, no bigger, no further away. 

He looked over at Lance from time to time, until the hangar doors of his eyelid slid closed and the roars of his breathing became even. 

And at some point, he fell asleep. 

*** 

Chris woke up to the sun in his eyes. He squinted and blinked, aware of heavy weights on him. He was flat on his back on Justin's deck, he realized, stark naked. Lance's leg was thrown over his, and Lance's arm was flung across his throat pressing uncomfortably on his windpipe. 

"Whoa," Chris said. He felt around carefully. A small scrap of silk handkerchief clung to his collarbone, and arching up and reaching under the small of his back he found a rather crushed cottonwood leaf. 

"Lance," he whispered. "Hey, Lance. Wake up." 

"Um," Lance said. Then, "Chris? CHRIS?!" 

"Whoa," Chris said, "That was right in my ear, dude." 

"Chris!" Lance shrieked. Chris heard running inside the house, a window being thrown open. He rolled towards Lance a little. 

"Um," he said, "I suspect we're about to be very busy with the exclamations of surprise and the giddy hugs and the impromptu celebration and all. But," he said, and turned his head and kissed Lance rapidly. 

"But?" Lance said. 

"This," Chris said impatiently, and kissed Lance again, and again, and gave up on trying to go anywhere and just kissed Lance lingeringly until he was pulled up into a giant four-way hug. 

And they lived happily ever after, until JC started to worry he was putting on weight... 


End file.
